Introduction
Welcome to the European Hostel Cooperation Newsletter for August 2006.
As always, we have gathered together different things that we hope you find interesting,
and of course we welcome any suggestions, criticisms or ideas for future newsletters.
Please send them to info@gomio.com.
Hostelling News
New Hostel in Barcelona
Over the summer a new hostel opened in Barcelona, and the guys from the “Hello BCN Hostel”
asked us if we would announce their opening in the next newsletter. They also told us to
let everyone in the European hostel scene know that they would love to receive flyers from
everyone to display for their guests. Please send them to...
Hello BCN Hostel
c/ Lafont 8 – 10
08004 Barcelona
Spain
You can also check out their new house on the website,
www.hellobcnhostel.com.
Hostels in the Media
It is always great when hostels and hostelling get some coverage in the mainstream
media for positive reasons, and over the summer the English newspaper the Guardian
featured their five favourite hostels in Europe. For the record, they were the
Circus Hostel in Berlin, the Art Hostel in Sofia, the Hostel Celica in Ljubljana,
the Stranger Hostel in Krakow, and Fun Friendly Franks in Riga. Well done guys!
You can read the article online at
travel.guardian.co.uk,
and if you have any media articles about hostels or hostelling that you wish us
to include in future editions of the European Hostel Cooperation newsletter, then please send them in!
Hostel Legislation
A hostel in Greece contacted us recently to ask if we could include a request
in the next newsletter in relation to something we had already done before with
regards the situation for hostels in that country. Here it is...
“The EHC has been made aware that current law in Greece virtually precludes the
setting up of new hostels. For this reason there are thought to be only 12
hostels in the country which is about double the size of Ireland with its 160+ hostels.
A year ago the EHC sent a detailed presentation to the Minister for Tourism and his
senior officers explaining that Greece was missing out on millions of euros in tourism
expenditure by not allowing a thriving hostel industry. The presentation seems to have been ignored.
Looking at the matter further got us to thinking that there may well be other
European countries with negative or poor legislation regarding hostels. We would like to
collect all law relating to hostels in all EU counties with the intention of making a presentation to
the Union to standardize the law in all 25 countries. Hopefully this could lead to a liberalisation of
the law in a number of countries. Can you help, please? If you are aware of the law in your country,
and can translate it into English if necessary, send it by e-mail to Chris (manager@amorgos.de)
who is preparing the presentation. Please make the subject line ‘Law’. Thanks.”
It would be fantastic if people could take the time to help Chris prepare this report,
as it may be a useful tool for hostels in many different countries.
European Hostel Research
As you may be aware, the EHC with the help of a number of hostels in Europe is
carrying out a research project in the hostels which involves a survey of
hostel guests across Europe so that we can build a picture of those staying in
hostels across the continent. This will be useful for the EHC, as well as for
hostels, and we would like to take the opportunity to thank those who agreed to help out.
The survey is ongoing, as we wanted to get results from both the high and low seasons,
and the aim is to collect the first results in October, and then again in the new year,
and present the findings at the 6th European Hostel Meeting in March 2007 in Interlaken,
Switzerland, as well as through the EHC newsletter and online at GOMIO.COM. If you would
like more information about the project, or would like to help, please email us at
info@gomio.com.
6th European Hostel Meeting in Interlaken
The 6th European Hostel Meeting will take place on the weekend of the
24th-25th March 2007 in Interlaken, Switzerland, and although it may seem like a
long way away, we would like to take the opportunity to let everyone know, and give
people the chance to tell us what they would like to see next year in Switzerland.
If you have any ideas for topics you would like raised in Interlaken, discussions or
debates you think are important, or anything else you would like us to consider, then
please get in contact with us at info@gomio.com. We will keep everyone informed with more
information on the 6th European Hostel Meeting in future EHC newsletters.
Travel and Tourism News
Eurail and Inter Rail come together
For travellers to Europe there were always two different rail passes; Eurail for those
coming from outside of Europe, and Inter Rail for those inside of Europe.
From the 1st April 2007 both passes will now be administered by the Eurail Group,
although the separate branding will remain.
The idea for bringing the two groups together is in order to create new passes and offers,
although it seems likely that for the traveller, little will change in the short term.
You can read more about this here:
biz.yahoo.com
Airline Security Update
There remains restrictions on baggage for travellers to and from the UK, the USA and Israel,
although it seems likely that protests from the airlines will result in lessening the restrictions
in the coming weeks. At present, virtually all European airlines in Europe flying to and from the
United Kingdom now allow hand luggage, although there are certain restrictions, such as the carrying of liquids onboard.
The current restrictions can be found on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website,
here: www.fco.gov.uk
Normal cabin baggage rules apply for flights in Europe that do not start or end in the United Kingdom.
How will the terror threat effect tourism?
It seems unlikely that the latest events in the United Kingdom will have a major impact on
tourism in Europe in general, rather a short term effect similar to that following the Madrid and London bombings.
An article in Business Week seems to put most of the effects as being short term,
such as a fear of flying that sees more people take to the trains. One area where the impact
is as yet unknown is the effect of increased airport security. If this continues as it is
then it could lead to increased prices on flights to and from the United Kingdom, as well as the
chance of more delays due to the larger and more extensive security controls.
You can read the article on the impact of the bomb threat on tourism online,
here: www.businessweek.com
Lonely Planet now in German
If you want to have some guidebooks behind your reception in different languages,
then it might be interesting to know that Lonely Planet is now publishing their guidebooks in German,
to go alongside their Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Japanese and of course English editions.
We found this information on Der Spiegel website, here:
www.spiegel.de (in German).
Update on “Obsolete Backpackers”
In the April edition of the EHC Newsletter we featured an article entitled “Do Backpackers exist?”
(Newsletter April 06).
The article was based on an academic study and claimed that in Australia,
95% of travellers staying at “backpacker hostels” reject the backpacker label.
Since then it seems that the industry is starting to take notice, with different companies in
Australia changing their branding in order to reflect the fact that travellers no longer wish
to be seen as backpackers. In an article in the Courier Mail, a hostel owner debates the use
of “backpacker” in his chain of hostels, whilst a tour company makes a claim for a new definition of
backpackers as “adventure-seekers”. We wonder if this will catch on in Europe...
You can read the article about the continuing debate over the term “backpacker” down under,
here: www.justtheflight.co.uk.
Contact Us
We always like to hear feedback on the newsletter, as well as ideas and suggestions for the
next European hostel meeting in Interlaken, Switzerland. If you would like to
contact us, you can do so over the following:
European Hostel Cooperation Head Office
Johannisstrasse 2
10117 Berlin
Germany
Telephone: +49 (0) 30 2462 8500
Fax: +49 (0) 30 2462 8501
Email: info@gomio.com